@F. Beard
I don’t think that Steve Keen expects his policies to be enacted, or even describes them as if they would be enacted, in a world with a strict gold standard. Not that they’ll be enacted anyway, but what the hell.

You can still have inflation, gold just needs repegging every now and then to local fiats effectively devalueing the currency-lets say every 3 or 4 yrs for sake of argument(for all countries at same time) thus allowing the appearance of growth.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHYOXyy1ToI&feature=related

Well, there is a problem with gold. We can start all over again and make the same mistake. Apart from all the gold being in the hands of a few people, it will be a replay of history.

In the late Middle Ages, from the thirteenth century onward, the money supply was greatly increased by goldsmiths who created money by lending out money they did not have in deposit. They invented fractional reserve banking which greatly stimulated trade. This gave an additional boost to the European economy.

The European economy started to run in a higher gear. This became the main driving force for the exploration and exploitation of the rest of the world by Europe in the centuries that followed. The expansionist drive also satisfied the interest payments on the increasing debt load, and in this way the usury financial system gradually took hold of Europe.

Over the years the influence of banks gradually increased. Bankers have influenced wars, revolutions and political developments by financing parties in conflicts. Central banks emerged, partly because the system of usury is inherently instable, and partly because of political activities of bankers. Central banks were introduced to regulate the banking business and to prevent bank runs, but they also generated a profit for the private interests behind the central banks.

@F. Beard
There’s no purpose to a gold standard, but it IS more able to preserve the value of each unit of currency by not being able to inflate it to zero. There’s a reason why all governments resort to fiat systems & that’s to keep those in power, in power & to extract from those outside of it. As a poor person, I can tell you that a £ that kept it’s value would be bloody useful to me. There’s no point me saving something that will never be worth more than during the second it hits my pocket.